This is the first application filed for the present invention.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates to the field of enhanced service feature provisioning on telecommunications networks, and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for coordinating a delivery of information related to a calling party with a telephone call to a termination, the information being delivered concurrently with call setup.
Call centers are used by companies to communicate with customers or prospective customers for the purposes of sales, product support, service delivery, etc. Providing such services is costly. Consequently, systems for improving call handling efficiency at call centers are in demand.
The telephony equipment generally used in call centers is automatic call distributors (ACDs) or private branch exchanges (PBXs) connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) by integrated services digital network (ISDN) trunks. It is also common practice for companies that operate call centers to provide toll-free access to all interested parties.
One way that efficiency is improved in call centers is by delivering caller information to call center agents as, or shortly after, calls are received. A method for supplying caller information to a respective display terminal of a call center agent is known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,706, which issued to Windsor et al. on Mar. 31, 1998, teaches a system for providing caller identification information to users of a key telephone system. In accordance with Windsor, calls are received/sent and caller/ed party information is displayed on a computer terminal associated with the telephone set that received/sent the call. Windsor""s system supports up to 8 internal lines using a key telephone system. The system is therefore suitable for use only by call centers with small call volumes.
Moreover the caller/ed party information made available to the call center agents is limited to a log of calls from or to the directory number of the calling party; the name, and directory number of the calling party; and/or, the timing information and internal line used to receive logged call(s). Although xe2x80x98notesxe2x80x99 can be appended to logged calls, and the logs can contain any information pertaining to the calling party that the call center agents input, Windsor does not provide means for displaying information that is not locally stored by the call center. Since the storage of the information is time-consuming, and the information can only be accumulated for repeat callers, the system taught by Windsor is of limited value to call centers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,684, which issued to Lund on Aug. 31, 1999, teaches a method for providing an enhanced service feature to telephone service subscribers. According to Lund, a central office switch serving a subscriber is adapted to access a database to look up a network address such as a universal resource locator (URL) associated with the calling party. The network address is displayed by the called party""s personal computer. This enhanced service feature is available to telephone subscribers with a single line, and supplies calling party information to the called party. The calling party information provided by Lund""s invention is associated with the directory number by the service provider. The inability to tailor the information to the needs of a called party is a limitation to the usefulness of this invention.
While the desire to provide caller-related information along with calls to call centers, or other call destinations that serve multiple lines, has long been recognized, a feasible solution is not known to exist.
There therefore remains a need for a method and system for correlating telephone calls with caller-related information at a facility equipped with a plurality of telephone lines.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and system for correlating a call setup signaling message with information received from a data network at a facility, with telephony equipment adapted to serve multiple telephone lines simultaneously.
It is also an object of the present invention to improve efficiency at facilities adapted to simultaneously serve multiple lines, such as call centers, voice access servers (VASs) and the like.
Accordingly, a method is provided involving a first step of inserting an identifier string into a call setup signaling message used to set up a telephone call for which an enhanced service feature requiring information, is requested. A second step of the method involves retrieving and sending the information with a copy of the identifier string, to a data network address of the facility, and a third step involves using the respective identifier strings to correlate the call setup signaling message with the information, in order to provide the enhanced service feature. As the call setup signaling message and information are received prior to establishment of the call, the information may be used to prepare the enhanced service feature before the call is established. For example, the information may be used to select a call center agent to handle the call.
The system of the present invention involves a facility and a call control application that controls a call control node. The call control application is sent call parameters from a call setup signaling message from the call control node. The call control application determines what, if any, enhanced service feature to apply to the call. If information retrieval is needed to perform an enhanced service feature to be applied to the call, the call control application will be programmed to issue an information delivery request that requests the information be sent to the facility. An information database is invoked to retrieve the information in the present invention, but it will be understood by those of skill in the art that any data retrieval mechanism would be equivalent. In particular, the call control application could send, directly to the facility, a key to retrieve data relating to the calling party, and so the information could be supplied by the call control application, in alternative embodiments of the invention. According to the invention, the identifier string is sent with the information, so that the information can be correlated with the call. The call control node is directed by the call control application to forward the call setup signaling message, which is relayed across the public switched telephone network (PSTN), to the facility.
The facility in the present system is any equipment (distributed or co-located) that terminates a call and can perform enhanced service features to augment the call requiring additional information that is supplied with information provided from a data network. In particular, it will be understood that when the facility supports several calls concurrently, the correlation of the information and the call is required in order to perform service features for the call, and so the facility particularly includes equipment adapted to terminate a plurality of lines simultaneously, and to provide services to the respective lines. It is assumed that the facility of the present invention incorporates a data server adapted to interface the facility with a data network.